


i cant change, even if i tried

by stillness_of_remembering



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aromantic, Aromantic Character, Background Relationships, Canon Compliant, Coming Out, Friendship, Gen, LGBTQ Themes, One Shot, Sexuality, Sexuality Crisis, Short, Short One Shot, aromantic bisexual yachi hitoka, idk - Freeform, queerplatonic - mentioned, what is a crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:07:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25175869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillness_of_remembering/pseuds/stillness_of_remembering
Summary: “Speaking of, dear,” her mom looks at her conspiratorially. “Do you like any of the boys on the volleyball team? They’re all quite handsome, aren’t they.”“No, mom.” Yachi says, exasperated. “I don’t like any of them.”“Are you sure?” Her grandmother asks teasingly.“Yes I’m sure.”“That’s alright. Fifteen is too young to settle down anyways. Better to wait until you’re in your twenties, dear. Just don’t wait too long!”---or, Yachi is only fifteen. She doesn’t want to get married. She doesn’t even want to think about marriage. She supposes she will someday, but that day isn’t today. But… a tiny voice inside of her says, she’s fifteen. Don’t most people at least have some interest in dating by now?Yachi- doesn’t.
Relationships: Yachi Hitoka & Karasuno Volleyball Club
Comments: 14
Kudos: 91





	i cant change, even if i tried

“You have to get married while I’m still alive,” Yachi’s grandmother says, smiling at her in a way that’s halfway joking, halfway serious.

“Oh,” Yachi laughs weakly. “Sure.”

“Speaking of, dear,” her mom looks at her conspiratorially. “Do you like any of the boys on the volleyball team? They’re all quite handsome, aren’t they.”

“No, mom.” Yachi says, exasperated. “I don’t like any of them.”  
  


“Are you sure?” Her grandmother asks teasingly.

“Yes I’m sure.”  
  
“That’s alright. Fifteen is too young to settle down anyways. Better to wait until you’re in your twenties, dear. Just don’t wait too long!”

They all laugh again, and Yachi wonders if they can tell that hers is politely fake. She makes an excuse to leave and takes a good five minutes longer in the bathroom than she needs to. She’s pleasantly surprised when the subject of conversation had moved on by the time she re emerges.

Yachi is only fifteen. She doesn’t want to get married. She doesn’t even want to think about marriage. She supposes she will someday, but that day isn’t today. But… a tiny voice inside of her says, she’s fifteen. Don’t most people at least have some interest in dating by now? 

Yachi- doesn’t. 

She thinks about it for the next two days straight. It seems like everywhere she looks, she sees romance: the students kissing in the corners during lunch, the love stories that saturates the media around her (and can she think of any books or movies or shows not for kids where romance isn’t present?), and the multiple couples on the volleyball team.

It’s not like Yachi has never thought about romance before. She had ‘crushes’ in elementary and middle school, but they were more based on appearance than any desire to talk to or date the guys involved. Back when she was younger, crushes were a fun secret you got to exchange with your friends. Now, they mean you actually want reciprocation, which is something Yachi finds somewhat alarming. (Yachi had sort of started saying she didn’t have a crush when they became a less common topic among the stress of high school exams and applications, and she’s just never gotten involved in the crush conversations since. She did figure out she was bisexual though around that time though, when she’d been struck by the beauty of an actress in a movie she’d seen.)

Maybe, Yachi considers. Maybe it’s that she _is_ having crushes, she just doesn’t know how to recognize them.

She goes to Kiyoko, who she trusts a good deal, the next day to ask her about the topic. The team is doing routine drills, and the managers don’t have much to do at the moment.

“Hey Kiyoko, I have a question. But it’s not really related to volleyball.”

Kiyoko looks up at her from her clipboard. Her eyes are calm and collected, as always. Yachi admires that about her.

“What is it?”

“Um. How would you describe a crush? Like how would you say it feels?”

“Hmm…” Kiyoko thinks for a minute. “It’s like obsession, but in a good way. You see how Tanaka and Nishinoya act around me all the time? Most times people don’t show it that way, but Tanaka and Nishinoya have no brain-to-mouth filter, so I guess the kinds of things they say are what people would think when they have a crush.”  
  
“Oh, so about how pretty you are and how much they admire you?”

Kiyoko nods, and the subject is dropped.

Yachi thinks Kiyoko is absolutely beautiful, and she admires her very much. She wants to be close with her, to be able to talk to her about anything. Does that mean she has a crush on her? 

That night, Yachi is lying in bed and she imagines seeing Kiyoko naked. She blushes. The image is very appealing. She imagines touching her, and she thinks she would like that a lot. 

Marriage is basically being best friends plus having sex, right? So that means she definitely has a crush on Kiyoko. 

But… Yachi thinks about asking Kiyoko out and gets a knot in her stomach that isn’t from butterflies or any other similar euphemism. If she asked Kiyoko out, it would be because she felt like it was what she was supposed to do, not because she actually wanted to. 

And it’s not like Yachi really _wants_ to be in a relationship.

She’s not lonely, because the guys on the team and Kiyoko seem to fill up all her time and she grows closer with all of them every day. If she ever is sad and needs to text someone, Hinata is there. If she needs help with a problem, she can go to Yamaguchi and Tsukishima, or honestly any of the upperclassmen. Kageyama was initially the scariest first year to her, but now she tutors him and he even protected her the other day from some second years trying to hit on her. Kiyoko is her mentor. 

Yachi would be content with the relationships in her life staying the same forever.

Of course, that can’t happen. Yachi isn’t dumb. She knows that after high school it’s inevitable that they’ll all go separate ways and it’s likely their friendships will end, which will terrify her when graduation comes nearer, but she has three more years left and she’s not going to think about that until she has to. 

Further in the future, Yachi tries to imagine a husband or a girlfriend (or maybe a wife, if same-sex marriage is legal in Japan by then), and all she can see is some faceless figure who will live in a house with her and their children. It doesn’t interest her at all. She has the same feeling when she imagines this scene as she does when she thinks that she will someday have wrinkles and arthritis (a vague dread along with resignation and ‘it can’t be that bad, it happens to everybody’). 

Yachi doesn’t want to be alone either though. Can she just have a best friend/roommate when she’s an adult? Is that a thing? She’s pretty sure people only have roommates in college or right after college, which is pretty sad, because that sounds kind of really nice to her, as a permanent thing.

And she’s _only fifteen,_ and this is adult stuff. It’ll come later, right? Yachi sighs when she realizes she’s circled right back around to where she started. 

“Yamaguchi, what do you think of marriage?” They’re walking in a large group down to Sakanoshita Store for meat buns one evening after practice.

Yamaguchi sputters. His face goes red and he glances up at Tsukishima with shy eyes. 

“I don’t know, I guess I’d want to do it, in the future.”

“How does it make you _feel_ though, when you think about it?” Yachi asks, frustrated. Tanaka and Nishinoya are waiting, wide-eyed, for Yamaguchi’s answer.

“Uh, good.” The blush deepens. “Obviously not now, but,” He seems embarrassed but forges forwards. “I want to spend my life with someone I love.”

Tsukishima has a tinge of pink on his cheekbones at this, and Yachi pretends she doesn’t see them subtly link hands. 

“And what about you two?” She aims this question at the two second years who were clearly listening. 

“I agree with Yamaguchi!” Tanaka says loudly. 

“Me too! I wanna marry Kiyoko! If she agrees, of course!” Nishinoya shouts.

“I don’t.” Kiyoko says, and Nishinoya becomes ecstatic that she’s addressed him.

“I don’t care so much about marriage.” It seems the third years had also been listening, because Sugawara jumps in with a smile. “Especially since that might not be an option for me.” It’s openly known that he and Daichi are boyfriends, though Yachi doesn’t know if Suga is gay or bi or what.

“But I would probably want a partner, even if I didn’t marry,” Suga finishes.

“I think my parents expect me to marry, but they’ll be fine with it if I don’t, especially if I settle down with someone,” Daichi says. 

The only people not involved in the discussion at this point are Kageyama and Hinata, who are fighting over something, and Asahi, who is trying to get them to stop fighting. And the other three second years, but they seem to be deep in conversation a little ways behind the main group.

Yachi doesn’t mind, because she’s gotten enough material to consider. She’s startled out of her thoughts when Nishinoya addresses her.

“What about you, Yachi? What you think about marriage?”

“I don’t know.” She frowns. “That’s what I was trying to figure out.”

“What do you mean?” Yamaguchi asks. His blush has almost all the way faded by now.

“Well,” Yachi decides to fill them in on her internal struggles. She trusts them all. “I don’t really want to date anyone. And I never really have. But, I don’t know what that means for me in the future. Oh well, I’m probably just a late bloomer,” she tries to laugh it off. “I’m sure I’ll become interested in it at some point.”

“I mean maybe,” Sugawara muses. “You’re aromantic, right?”

“Aromantic?” Is that what it sounds like? Is that a thing?

“Not interested in romance. Or on that spectrum, where you might only occasionally be interested in romance,” Sugawara says. 

“Oh,” Yachi says. That… might be accurate. 

“Ah, well, if you are, or even if you aren’t, marriage or a long term romantic relationship aren’t the only things out there.”

They aren’t? 

The rest of the team is listening intently, interested in Suga’s explanation.

“You can have long term platonic partners too! There is a thing called queerplatonic, which is like closer than friends, but not romantic. Of course, if you aren’t interested in any of that and you just want friends, that’s okay too.”

_“Oh,”_ Yachi echoes herself, but this time she sounds enlightened. That’s certainly how she feels. A platonic life partner. What had she thought before? 

“I was thinking, the other day,” she starts shyly. “That I might want a best friend roommate forever, when I’m grown up, but that I don’t want a boyfriend or a girlfriend.”

“That sounds great, Yachi!” Tanaka cries enthusiastically. And Yachi knows it’s not from understanding. He just told them all that he wants marriage when he’s older, but it makes her really happy that he accepts it just like that. 

The rest of them are nodding supportively.

Yachi thinks that she’ll need to look it up herself when she gets home, and consider it all a little more, but right now none of that matters. 

Right now she’s with her friends and they’re going to get pork buns together, and this moment is forever.

**Author's Note:**

> haha so i wrote this in 2 hrs and didn't edit yeye🤩 
> 
> but anyways,,, pls enjoy yachi's aro crisis and me projecting myself onto her


End file.
